Anthony J Crowley and the Crying Bookseller
by Penny Watson Lafayette
Summary: Every time someone cries, the first tear leaves a wound in the shape of its trail. Crowley had a single, faint scar running down his left cheek, and if ever anyone asked him, he said he got it in a fight. He was the only person who knew otherwise, and he intended to keep it that way- until he met the peculiar bookseller at A.Z. Fell & Co.
1. It began on a Tuesday

On this one morning, Anthony J. Crowley was running away. Well, actually, he was driving away. He knew he needed a day to get away from Heaven and Hell and all that other nonsense. Thing is, there wasn't a destination he had in mind. So there he was, driving aimlessly around the streets of London, nowhere to be but away and moving. Moving and away.

As he was driving around in circles, with nowhere to go in particular, he had a strange and sudden urge to go and find... a bookshop. Though he had never read anything longer than your typical tabloid article*, he felt somehow drawn to the idea of visiting one.

Not just any bookshop, he realised- as he wandered into the first one he saw. He needed a specific bookshop. It had to feel, well, right. And this one didn't have the… Crowley couldn't put his finger on what it didn't have, but whatever it was, it wasn't there. So Anthony hopped** back in his Bentley, and he went driving around London once more. Of all the places he could have chosen to stop at, he realised where he needed to go was Soho.

An hour or so later, Crowley found himself standing in possibly the worst-kept bookshop he had ever entered. While it was definitely organised- broadly in terms of genre and time period, then alphabetically by the authors' surnames, nearly everything was coated in dust. The store had an old, messy, yet cosy feel to it, almost as if it had been charmed to appear that way.

What struck Anthony J. Crowley, though, more than the dishevelled shelves, was the dishevelled shopkeeper. Who, out of angels, demons, humans, and all other creatures, had the reddest, bloodiest face Crowley had ever seen.

He couldn't even think of the right thing to say to him- or if he should say anything at all. Luckily for Crowley, he didn't have to think of anything before the aforementioned shopkeeper was trying to get him out of the store.

"I'm awfully sorry, but we do close at one on Tuesdays so you'll have to be leaving now," the strange man said before practically dragging Crowley outside.

Anthony J. Crowley, as soon as he had been pushed out of the store, realised he had been blatantly lied to. The opening hours were posted on one of the front-facing windows, and the store opened at one on Tuesdays. So, even though it would have been wiser not to, he briskly rapped on the door and shouted, "You lied to me! I read your sign, and it says that you have been known to open as late as one on Tuesdays- you don't close then!"

As it was such a rare occasion for someone to actually read and comprehend the opening hours posted outside A. Z. Fell & Co., the owner became so flabbergasted that he actually let Crowley in. "The name's Aziraphale, and you are?"

"You can call me Crowley."

*Crowley invented tabloid articles, and was particularly proud about it. He also used to write the Daily Mail's horoscopes, before he was replaced by a white middle-aged woman named Patricia (who happened to have her own crystal shop).

** Crowley would never describe himself as hopping, of course, because he considered himself a suave, cool, apathetic demon, with a reputation to uphold. That being said, he certainly did hop.


	2. It continued for a reason

Once Anthony J. Crowley had been allowed re-entry to the Soho bookstore, he was asked a question he couldn't answer.

"So, what brings you to my shop?" Aziraphale looked halfway flustered. "It's not exactly well known…"

Crowley began to trip over his words about as gracefully as a five-year old would while trying to dive for the first time. "I was driving, and sad, and I just sort of- well I sort of felt as if I needed a bookstore."

"So- what sort of books do you read?"

This made Crowley even more hesitant to talk. How was he meant to tell the man in front of him? "Oh yes, sorry, I don't read, but I came to a bookstore just for fun?" Who goes to a bookstore if they don't read? What sort of a lowlife nobody would go to a store full of books if they didn't have any intention of reading them? Crowley really made himself think sometimes.

And it wasn't too long before he realised that he had voiced his thoughts aloud. Aziraphale looked at him, completely heartbroken. "If you want to leave, you can."

Crowley knew he shouldn't. "No, I want to find a book. A good one. If you could help me find a good book, I'd be very obliged to stay, wouldn't I?"

Aziraphale spent the rest of the day guiding Crowley around the bookstore, suggesting books to start with. By late afternoon, Anthony J. Crowley walked away with thirteen books* and a promise to return once he had read them all.

As Crowley got back into the Bentley to return home, he remembered Aziraphale's face lighting up once he promised to read the books. Aziraphale's face… Anthony nearly slapped himself when he realised. He had meant to ask Aziraphale about his face! About the crying! He had just felt too nervous to mention it, and then he got all swept up in the moment. Crowley felt a little bad about the bookshop visit after that.

Circling the M25, Crowley returned to one of his least favourite pastimes: overthinking. Was it better that he hadn't brought up the facial cuts? Would Aziraphale have even talked about it with a complete stranger? What if he never found out how it happened? What if it was serious? None of these questions were answered. But once he returned home, Anthony J. Crowley was determined to do something he had never wanted to do in his life: read thirteen books as fast as demonly possible.

Aziraphale had said to start with the Harry Potters. That they were easy, and that they weren't too heavy with the metaphors. So as soon as Crowley walked into his apartment and yelled at his plants a little, he brought himself to the pile of books and picked up Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.

The whole reason that Crowley had never really read, is that it was

1) Something that took an awfully long amount of time, and

2) Something that was frowned upon by his bosses Down Below.

Harry Potter, however, made him really feel as if this was something he could do. Crowley read deeply, right into the heart of this story about an insufferably oblivious child wizard, and he felt something. He felt quite a lot of somethings. He became happy, and sad, and scared, and excited, and furious, and curious, and he felt it all about something he knew wasn't even real. It was just words on pieces of paper bound together, but it made him feel emotion, real emotion, fiercely as he never had before.

He devoured them. By the end of the first week, he had nearly finished Half Blood Prince. It was exhilarating- he loved feeling so attached to this teenage wizard, and completely forgetting where he was. It was like television, but a million times better.

And a week and a half after the first Tuesday, Anthony J. Crowley found himself searching for a Soho bookshop, with a very particular reason for it in mind.

* * *

* For those wondering, the books were; Shakespeare's sonnets, Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Complete Sherlock Holmes, Frankenstein, and all seven Harry Potters.


	3. It developed at a coffee joint

Aziraphale Ziraphale Fell ushered the one legitimate customer out of his store before facing Crowley. "Did you read them? Did you read any of the books I gave you?"

Aziraphale's entire face lit up when he heard Crowley answer yes. "Well, if you came to talk about them, then I really don't think a bookshop is the best place to do that. Why don't I close up for the day, and then we can settle down at… the coffee joint on the corner? Or if you don't like coffee, then there's a nearby tearoom-" Aziraphale was evidently anxious, and seemed the sort of person to talk for hours when he was, "and of course I know the owners*, so they'll let us in even though they're normally closed Fridays. Which would you prefer?"

Crowley, after having spent the past week and a half reading non-stop**, was feeling quite a bit more than a little tired. "I think coffee would be best." He didn't really know how caffeine would affect him, what with being a demon and everything, but surely if alcohol could make him drunk then coffee would do _something, _even if he didn't know exactly what it would be.

No more than a minute later, angel and demon were walking to the nearest café together. Both of them, on this walk, felt the urge to move over and hold the other's hand, but neither did because both felt the other would be taken aback. In fact, they were both wrong, and very oblivious to their incorrectness as well.

Soho felt perfect, on this one Friday. The café Aziraphale had chosen did as well. It was the sort of quiet, understated, homely place that one could easily imagine him in. Both he and Crowley seated themselves at an inside table, nestled neatly at the back.

Their conversation, while riveting as it happened, left Crowley as soon as it stopped. Aziraphale, though usually unwilling to speak at length, could rant and rant when it pleased him to, and about so many different topics as well. Romantic poetry, Broadway musicals of the 1940s, and even which winter flowers would complement a black minimalist apartment. It was no wonder that everyone who met him immediately gained the impression that he was gayer than a tree full of monkeys on nitrous oxide***. Crowley found himself gazing, completely star struck, at this man who looked like home.

Over the café radio, Crowley noticed a peculiar song, which peculiarly seemed to fit his situation perfectly:

_~I ain't ready,__  
__Crazy little thing called love~_

* * *

* Aziraphale knew the owners of every establishment he went to. Having been around as an immortal so long made him very well aware of all the memory techniques there were to learn, so he became a master of connecting people's names to their faces. He still couldn't quite grasp the more basic principles of physics though.

** Crowley read without so much as a bathroom break. Demons could do that, if they wanted. Just switching off bodily functions completely wasn't a difficulty so much as a hassle for him.

*** The phrase 'gayer than a tree full of monkeys on nitrous oxide' was originally from the Good Omens novel by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, and has simply been re-used in this fanfiction (along with countless others) because it's just so darn good to describe Aziraphale!


	4. He blamed Heaven

The next week, Anthony J. Crowley walked up to the little Soho bookstore he had come to love with a definitive purpose. He was not going to leave until Aziraphale told the story of his face.

"Anthony! How good to see you," the bookseller beamed.

"Yes, well, about that. I know it's very personal, but I was wondering how your face came to be like that."

Aziraphale ushered the one stray customer out of his store, then turned to face Anthony. "Well, you see, it's the product of a very strange series of events, I'm sure you'd think I was mad if I told you. But, strangely, I trust you- and I trust you'll believe me when I tell it all."

Aziraphale started slowly, but then momentum began to build. He started from the beginning- the very beginning. He spoke at length about how he though this universe was a mistake, how God had fucked up spectacularly and he thought She was wrong for it. He detailed how all the other angels were in complete agreement with her, clearly, and how they shunned him for his ideas. He described Heaven as a dysfunctional family unit, with a single mother who didn't care for any of her children, and many older siblings who actively taunted the youngest. Him. No angel was ever even decent to him unless they wanted something out of it. He felt trapped, overwhelmed, completely in over his head from it all.

He had cried the most, and for longest, when the flood came. When so many innocent people, and creatures, and literal children were wiped out- clinically washed away, exterminated - just because She thought it was right. He didn't know why She had the authority in the first place, but falling from grace was a painful and dangerous punishment he didn't want to risk. Any day on Earth wasn't a day in Heaven, and he was glad of it. He could never be himself in Heaven, and he felt that strangely enough, he was most himself around this one stranger who had taken an interest in his bookshop without even being an avid reader.

Aziraphale, like most other children who had neglectful or outright terrible parents, wasn't like people who knew what it was like to feel love on a basic level. And he was a bit different for it- his bookshelf, a rather solitary place that allowed for escapism, was crowded in with things that were objectively his. He surrounded himself with things he collected, things that belonged to him, things that let him leave this universe when it all got too much.

Aziraphale's nightmares were the worst- those pristine white rooms, the taunting, the slaughterhouse as empty as a hospital ward with a completely contrary purpose. The others in Heaven were cold and calculating- they wouldn't fuss over such human things as emotion and kindness and just basic humanity. They thought humanity was basic, so much so that they tried to rise above it. If there was anything on Earth that the angels resembled most, it would have been a parking meter- especially the kind that charged absurd rates and handed out too many fines because of corrupt local politicians. The corrupt local politician to rule over all corrupt local politicians was God, who busied herself with the most local place there was: our universe.

Listening to his story, Crowley found himself moved. He never could have guessed that Aziraphale too had negative experiences with Her. The next visit, he knew he had to share the story of his two scars.


	5. They went too fast

The very next day, Crowley came back to the bookstore as Aziraphale was pointedly busying himself around as much as possible. Most likely, Crowley thought, he was trying to forget about their previous conversation. The books, instead of their usual musty scent, held the distinct odour of self-conscious anxiety- a reflection of the storeowner.

After multiple failed attempts to gain the angel's attention, Crowley nearly gave up. His dejected face showed all as he asked "Aziraphale, why can't you talk to me like you did yesterday?" 

"Yesterday was exactly the problem, my dear." Aziraphale looked almost shocked with himself. "I mean, I shouldn't have heaped all my problems onto someone I only know on, daresay, a casual level. You haven't… We haven't known each other for two weeks yet. And, if I go too fast with this, heap my problems on someone like you…"

"You think it'll scare me off." Crisp realisation dawned on Crowley. "Listen, angel… Can I call you angel?"

Aziraphale nodded.

"Anyway… Look up at me, angel." Crowley spoke with authority and gentle respect. "You see the scars on my cheeks? They're because of Her. The same God you fear threw me out of Heaven."

"Well," Aziraphale stiffened up noticeably. "We certainly don't have anything in common, do we?"

Crowley resigned himself to the knowledge that Aziraphale was probably extremely close-minded. And he braced himself for the inevitable rejection. "Look. I'm a demon, you're… You're clearly not. But I want to strike a deal with you. Create an arrangement of sorts. If neither of us tell our respective head offices about this, I think- sorry, I know I'd like to be friends."

"That all?" The angel hadn't let go of any of his fears yet.

"Yes, that's all." Crowley regained his posture. "No other intentions. Just want someone to talk with, recommend a book or two, and maybe watch a movie together every so often."

"Just that?"

"Just that."

"Nothing else?"

"Nothing else. You trust me, angel?" Crowley held his hand out as another reached out to join it.

Aziraphale's grip was shaky, yet firm. "I do."

The next time Aziraphale was on the verge of tears, Crowley was there to steady him. It was a regularly empty day in the bookstore, hardly unlike any other. All prospective customers had been shooed out, yet there was a lingering sense of a presence in the air. Some sort of tension.

Aziraphale turned to face Crowley. "My dear, I… I don't understand what's happening, but I feel perhaps more anxious than I've ever been."

"Angel," Crowley replied coolly, "Look me in the eyes. You've just got to remind yourself that you're here and there's nothing to worry about. I," and he took more than a dash of artistic liberty with this, "am your favourite person, who you should be completely comfortable around, and you're in your own personal bookstore, which smells," he sniffed the air for dramatic effect, "exactly like every nerd's wet dream. But, while I don't see any reason why you should be uncomfortable, you clearly are and I don't want to invalidate your feelings. So, why don't you tell me what it is?"

"Well," Aziraphale shifted around a little, "I can just feel that something's off. Something here's different than it was when you used to come here."

"Well, I don't feel any different than I've ever felt." Crowley swivelled his head a couple of times. "And the bookshop doesn't look any different. Maybe you just need to go into a little more detail about what you're feeling right now."

"I feel… Light, and floaty," Aziraphale suddenly gained more awareness of his sensations. "And, sort of, nauseated? Like my stomach's doing a gymnastics routine. Or like I've eaten two-day old sushi."

"Angels can't get properly, like, humanly sick," Crowley began pacing. "Maybe it's some weird emotion you've never felt?"

"Like what?" Aziraphale countered. "Pretty sure I've been exposed to everything by now. It's only been six thousand years."

Crowley stopped in his tracks. "Hey angel?"

"Yes dear?"

Crowley continued walking, circling Aziraphale now. "You keep calling me dear. Have you called anyone dear before?"

Aziraphale paused and raised his head, before responding, "No?"

Crowley knew he had a decision to make here. It had become exceptionally clear, crystal, even, that Aziraphale had fallen head over heels for him. And had probably never been romantically interested in anyone, ever. And would likely be at least a tiny bit miffed that the entity in question was a demon. So, even though it would make him appear comically arrogant, he knew what he was expected to say.

"Aziraphale, I think you're in love with me. And I know I love you back."


End file.
